Jailed brothel owner's properties to be seized

The owner of a lucrative brothel currently in jail for refusing to hand over £2 million of his ill-gotten gains will now have three properties seized to settle the bill.

The move comes after a judge appointed a receiver to sell the properties and recover as much of the missing cash as possible.

Carl Pritchett, now 59, was locked up for two years in 2006 for running Cuddles Massage Parlour in Bearwood.

That followed a raid on the brothel in Hagley Road in 2005 when police found 19 foreign women employed as sex workers.

The business had an average of 490 clients a week and made £3.5m profit in six years, a previous court case was told. Prostitutes would pay £20 to management for each customer and a further £10 for every return visit.

Pritchett, from The Parade, Dudley, and formerly of Holbeache Road, Wall Heath, was locked up for a further seven years in 2009 after failing to stump up the £2m he pocketed from the racket. He had been ordered to repay the sum within six months through Proceeds of Crime Act legislation.

Prosecutor Mr John Butterfield told Wolverhampton Crown Court yesterday that restraining orders had been put on a property in The Parade, the former Cuddles site in Hagley Road and a site in Lower High Street, Walsall, owned by Pritchett.

Judge Martin Walsh ruled proceeds from the sale of the addresses should go towards the confiscation order.

Mr Anthony Johnson, representing Pritchett, did not not oppose the latest development in the saga but Mr Butterfield confessed: "No-one is fooling themselves that this is the last word in this story."

The judge ordered Pritchett to pay £2,500 costs for the hearing because he had initially "hotly contested" the application.

Pritchett set up Cuddles in 1999 with money made from another brothel in Selly Oak, Birmingham, bought in 1991, an earlier court hearing was told.